Pendleton retains world sprint title

Updated: Saturday, 27 Mar 2010 19:23

Victoria Pendleton won the women's sprint for the fourth time in a row

Britain's Victoria Pendleton won the women's sprint at the world track cycling championships for the fourth time in a row and the fifth in six years on Saturday.

Pendleton was too good for China's Shuang Guo as she won the first two races in the best-of-three final to give Britain their second gold of the championships following Chris Hoy's win in the keirin on Thursday.

The second race was re-run after Pendleton slipped on the track.

‘I just came a little sharp on the track. When you're used to riding a track with less sharp bends you forget the risks involved with tracks like this,’ she told the BBC.

‘Sometimes the adrenaline rush can be quite good (after a crash). Maybe it helped me a little bit.’

Australia claimed their sixth gold of the championships when Leigh Howard and Cameron Meyer won the men's madison race, while France took the silver and Belgium the bronze.

It was the first time Australia had won the event since it was introduced into the championships in 1995.

Triple Olympic champion Hoy's hopes of adding to his keirin gold ended when he lost to defending champion Gregory Bauge of France in the quarter-finals of the men's sprint.

Hoy was beaten by Germany's Robert Forstemann in the eighth-finals but then won a three-man repechage to qualify for the quarter-finals only to lose to Bauge in three races.

In the day's other final, Canada's Tara Whitten won gold in the women's omnium, consisting of five different events.

Britain's Elizabeth Armistead was second and Leire Olaberria of Spain took the bronze.